Talk:Trac

Deletion
Looks like someone has mistaken this disambiguation(?) page for an opportunity to advertise their product? Not sure exactly what needs to be done here. Does anyone understand what the major Trac discussed here actually is? Jcsutton 00:50, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

For the information of anyone who (as I did) reads the above comment and gets confused, that comment appears to have referred to some weird stealth spam that was here earlier. See the VFD link above and/or the page history before Jcsutton's 3 Jan 2005 edit. Graue 02:05, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

NASA
The article has no reference listed for the comment about Trac being used at Nasa. Anyone have a link to back up the statement? Jeremyh 02:26, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
 * http://trac.edgewall.org/wiki/TracUsers &mdash; RevRagnarok  Talk Contrib 02:49, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Logo
I emailed the Trac people about using their logo (http://www.edgewall.org/gfx/trac_logo.png) in the article, but the file upload page and all of this mention of the GFDL scared me away. Can someone with more experience in this area tell me what to do? --Mdkess 14:50, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

interface to version control systems?
Trac interfaces with SVN only - there are [experimental] plugins for Git/Mercurial/Bazaar, but they do not come with Trac, so the statement is wrong? --212.183.134.209 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 20:14, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Inappropriate external links
User:Renfeng recently added a self-created tutorial to the extlinks section and reverted its removal. This isn't an appropriate link for a number of reasons; it should go again. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:38, 10 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, instead of just saying "a number of reasons," how about listing them, with reference to guidelines? Consider "self-promotion" moot, because I'm willing to add the link, absent objection. --Abd (talk) 13:36, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook or textbook; External links must be to reliable sources. A tutorial written by an editor and then posted on a free web hosting service is neither of these. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:19, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

IP 91.194.252.45 has edited several times the page to add a reference to the Android mobile market application implementing Trac. The link (market://details?id=com.prrm.tracker) is not available to users not using an Android system. Maybe this address should be temporarily blocked? 12:00, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Adoption
"'Trac is reported to have more than 450 installations worldwide'"

is a bit confusing, since it gives the impression that Trac is being reported to have been installed on 450 boxes worldwide, which is not the case. Surely there are more, probably thousands or tens of thousands of installations being used but just not listed on that page. Something along the following lines would better serve the reader:

"'The Trac website lists over 450 users of the software, and .'"

If speculation on the popularity is not encyclopediaic, some download count figures could be thrown in?

82.130.24.223 (talk) 19:13, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Sounds good to me. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:16, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: no consensus to move page. - GTBacchus(talk) 06:31, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Trac → Trac (Project Management Tool) — Multiple articles exist with this title, and a more appropriate disambiguation page is necessary | Relisting billinghurst  sDrewth  16:33, 21 July 2010 (UTC) | Tvanpeursem (talk) 00:21, 13 July 2010 (UTC)


 * TRAC (disambiguation) → TRAC


 * Examination of the other pages linked to from the dab suggests that this is by far the one with the most inbound links, with over a hundred; most of the rest of the potential targets have a handful, and two are linked only from the dab page. So this is the primary usage and it;s fine where it is. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 00:04, 14 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Support I believe there are users who do gnomish work making sure ambiguous links point to non-ambiguous targets. I cannot independently verify that one target is more important than any others. Miami33139 (talk) 07:51, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * keep Trac is ok (but TRAC is not ok) ! — Neustradamus ( ✉  ) 11:45, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose Trac is clearly the most common usage of the name in English, especially if you leave out acronyms. No need for excessive disambiguation. Steven Walling  21:43, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Screenshot Update
Could someone that runs TRAC, if possible please update the screenshot to the homepage of a clean TRAC install of the latest version. --Johanvanl (talk) 20:45, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Removed notibility tag
Trac is a significan Open Source project with wide spread deployment. It is used in the DevOps and Continuous Integration communities to tie bug reports and wiki updates with git commits. Robert.Harker (talk) 07:20, 31 March 2016 (UTC)


 * I agree that there's really no notability concern with Trac. But it's always preferable to add sufficient independent reliable sources to the article to establish notability, as required by WP:GNG. -- intgr [talk] 07:50, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
 * It should still be present as the criteria you cite is nonexistent on Wikipedia. See WP:N. Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:23, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Enough references to significant sites that use Trac for you? Personally, my list feels like a marketing plug, but I know it is not since I have no relationship with the Trac project other than having used it in the past.

Note: I am not removing the self-published or Primary sources tags, just the notability tag. Robert.Harker (talk) 16:55, 31 March 2016 (UTC)


 * No, "significant sites that use Trac" doesn't satisfy notability. See WP:GNG for the full criteria; published independent sources that have significant coverage about Trac are required. -- intgr [talk] 17:04, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

OK, four articles listing Trac as a top issue tracking system. I will admit it is a poorly written article. I just don't have any desire to rewrite it.Robert.Harker (talk) 17:33, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Did you even bother to read WP:N? That companies or projects claim to use the software (or used it at some point in time) does not make the software notable, that it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, is what causes the presumption that the subject is suitable. References go after punctuation. A list in prose usually ends with a conjunction and sentences usually end in periods. All fixed. Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:41, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

What have you against Trac?

I give up. 4 separate published articles listing Trac as a top 4-15 issue tracking tool. Two of them notiable sources in the Open Source / software comminity, Java World and opensource.org. I give up, you win.Robert.Harker (talk) 05:15, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
 * What makes you think I have anything against Trac? I am simply applying Wikipedia's editing standards to this article.
 * I'm sorry that you give u.. oh, you nearly had me. You didn't actually give up. Where I am it's still not April 1, but the UTC timestamp makes it clear it's April 1 somewhere. Good one.
 * Go read WP:N and then explain why Trac deserves a pass on that notability guideline. The guideline does not state that the number of companies using a product make it notable. At least if it does, I missed it. The template should be removed after references are added that show significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of Trac. If I didn't revert, another editor could. Walter Görlitz (talk) 06:09, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Trac has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources and is therefore notable: Book 1: Managing Software Development with Trac and Subversion, 2007, David J Murphy, Packt Publishing, ISBN 1847191665, Book 2: Trac with Subversion―Linux/Windows, 2008, Kyousuke Takayama, Shuwa System, ISBN 4798019615, Book 3: Trac入門――ソフトウェア開発・プロジェクト管理活用ガイド, 2008, Gijutsu-Hyohron, ISBN 4774136158 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cgbuff (talk • contribs) 06:39, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
 * How to books are not independent of the subject. Walter Görlitz (talk) 06:41, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Notability_(software) states "A computer program can usually be presumed to be notable if [...] It is the subject of multiple printed third-party manuals, instruction books [...]". Cgbuff (talk) 17:44, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Diploma Thesis: Issue Tracking Systems, 2009, Jiří Janák introduces Trac in five pages as part of an overview of the most popular tracking systems and compares it to four other systems. It states "Trac is maybe best known and most used open source (and free) issue tracking system [...]". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cgbuff (talk • contribs) 18:42, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Tracking community intelligence with Trac, 2011, Rob Baxter, Neil Chue Hong, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A writes "Trac has attracted a large userbase, from small, open-source projects to large blue-chip firms, and an active developer community." Cgbuff (talk) 19:06, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Bug Tracking and Reliability Assessment System, 2011, V.B. Singh, Krishna Kumar Chaturvedi, International Journal of Software Engineering and Its Applications contains a comparative study of Trac and six other bug tracking tools that are "the most popular, most used and still in the improvement process." Cgbuff (talk) 19:20, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
 * First entry, Janák, is a survey as part of survey of tools and is simply a doctoral thesis. Fails.
 * What fails? It's an independent source with extensive coverage. Cgbuff (talk) 20:26, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Baxter and Hong is a mention to explain why they used it, not to say "it's the best" or anything like it. Fails.
 * What fails? It's an independent source with extensive coverage. Cgbuff (talk) 20:26, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Singh and Chaturvedi might be a RS, but again, it's not enough. But if you want to take those to a discussion about its notability vs. its deletion, I'm sure a third deletion discussion could be started. The second AfD had a few sources that would be considered reliable though. 208.81.212.224 (talk) 20:07, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Why is it not enough? Why would it be deleted when there dozens of independent sources with coverage of significant depth directly about the software in accordance with the notability guidelines for software linked above?
 * An Analysis of Requirements Evolution in Open Source Projects: Recommendations for Issue Trackers, 2013, Petra Heck, Andy Zaidman, Proceedings of the 2013 International Workshop on Principles of Software Evolution contains a small comparison of three "widely-used issue trackers", including Trac.
 * Crawling Bug Tracker for Semantic Bug Search, 2008, Ha Manh Tran, Georgi Chulkov, Jürgen Schönwälder, International Workshop on Distributed Systems: Operations and Management "present a study of popular bug tracking systems", "with a specific focus on the four most popular open source systems" including on Trac.
 * Libre software for research, 2007, Israel Herraiz, Juan José Amor, Álvaro del Castillo, Proceedings of the FLOSS International Conference present "a proposal to manage research projects" and "recommend Trac".
 * There are dozens (hundreds? thousands?) more in e.g. the Google scholar search results for Trac. Cgbuff (talk) 20:26, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Janák is not a recognized expert. He was someone trying to get a degree.
 * Oh I see, you are just going to ask again and again because you think "source" means "reliable source". I'm saying they're not reliable sources. I suspect that you should take your "dozens (hundreds? thousands?) more" sources to WP:RSN and offer your sources and ask if they qualify to help support notability on this subject. I pointed you to what are considered RSes in the AFD, but if you don't want to check them out, I can't help you. 208.81.212.224 (talk) 02:06, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you for pointing out the second AfD. One of the sources there is actually the same Book 1 I listed above. Could you kindly point out which sources you consider reliable, why the others are not reliable and where in the guidelines this is explained? I'm really trying to find out what the relevant difference is. You reject sources because they are not by a "recognized experts" or they do not say "it's the best". To me Notability_(software) describes an entirely different guideline where these reasons make no sense. Cgbuff (talk) 17:28, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Did you read WP:RS? That explains it quite well. If you have questions after you read that, please let me know. Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:25, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I read that and also WP:SOURCE. Cgbuff (talk) 07:20, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

In another article Trac is discussed as one of the tools that the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy "after evaluation various systems of this kind" was satisfied with and was using for most projects: Cgbuff (talk) 19:37, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Shocked by the lack of notability template
I'm shocked by the "lack of notability" template placed at the top of the article.

There is a Managing Software Development with Trac and Subversion book dedicated to Trac and Subversion, there are some other books about version control that mention Trac. Trac is included in these three top project management tool lists: A, B, C published all by notable, popular websites.

Although it is an essay and informal, Notability (software) may be read to have a specific view on softwares' notability. WP:N's good but not specific at all, thus might not have too much help.

Trac is the tracking tool, the bug reporting system that backs the development of WordPress, and WordPress is used by more than 60 million websites, including more than 26.4% of the top 10 million websites on Internet. Thus, it might be sensationalist but, Trac may be kind of a guarantee or a base that ensures the functioning of almost a quarter of all websites on Internet.

Personally, I'm not a pro at all, JavaScript and PHP are like my hobbies, and among those "Client-server" and "Distributed" Bug tracking systems, I only know Bugzilla and Trac; among those non PHP Wiki software, I only know TiddlyWiki and Trac.

I've read the threads above, there's a guy kind of like a computer science/programming language specialist/professional, or at least, who cares a lot about these stuff according to his user page; and there's a guy who might not have too much interests on the programming stuff, but might have some interests on deleting the article and adding "lack of notability" template, his "persistance" drew that pro guy back, made him give up. It is bad. I think nowadays Wikipedia's articles may need more points of view from pros, and if editors that are not interested in a field keep drawing back the pros of the field, it is simply bad.

So I'm removing the template for now. Let's see who will re-add it back :) --Tomchen1989 (talk) 00:06, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
 * You really should read WP:N. Having read the section above, it's clear that it's not notable. Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:55, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but that is a very weird reading of the discussion above. For me it's clear from reading the above that it is indeed notable. It's widely used and covered in several books published by different publishers. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:30, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
 * It's widely purchased. Use is not a guarantee. 208.81.212.224 (talk) 22:38, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Purchasing free and open-source software? That troll, though…  06:58, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Sorry. My mistake. Download, install and abandon. Don't call editors trolls. Walter Görlitz (talk) 07:29, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
 * That would be applicable to just about everything: people buy cars and do not use them, buy food and do not eat it, buy phones and just set them on shelves, buy music and do not listen to it. Is that your point? I do not think notability is about this, but rather about the fact that there exists lots of activity revolving around this tool showing a clear interest that goes far beyond most other projects, hence making it notable.  07:59, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
 * But they're not buying this software. You said so yourself. And that's the difference with FOSS and commercial software. The entry to trying the software is low. Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:08, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Which is entirely irrelevant for notability. Eating a Mars bar has a low entry bar, too. We still have an article on it. The books that cover Trac, on the other hand, are not free, and the fact that the system is covered in several books and at least somewhat discussed in several others makes it notable. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:57, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Not really. Mars Bar, has has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject and so we presumed it to be sufficiently notable and suitable for a stand-alone article or list.
 * The nonsense being spouted here doesn't meet that threshold. Supposedly its widely used and covered. I don't see it. I suppose one reader's widely used and covered is "hey we tried it and chucked it" while I don't buy that argument. When companies use a product, it is evident. When it's widely covered, that means widely. At conferences and in discussions of the subject, Trac is not mentioned. JIRA is mentioned. FogBugz is mentioned. Bugzilla is mentioned. Trac rarely comes up. 208.81.212.224 (talk) 18:46, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Release year
The infobox and tags claim the software was initially released in 2006. This contradicts the facts, the references and the article body; it was started in 2003 and the first release was in 2004. I fixed this but it was reverted without giving a reason. Why? Cgbuff (talk) 06:19, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Update it. Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:07, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Trac Hacks
It's important to mention that there are not just a few more plugins, but many hundreds of them. It would then be quite natural to also include where those hundreds of plugins are. But any mention of the Trac Hacks community website, the main place for hosting Trac plugins, gets reverted as spam. That website is also mentioned in references like 12. It seems absurd not to mention that website. What's the problem? Should those references be cited again? Cgbuff (talk) 06:19, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
 * It's not important. If it were, there would be article about it not just mentions of it in other sources. Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:06, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
 * It's not important on its own, but it's important in the context of Trac, so there are no articles about it on its own but articles about Trac mention it because that's the context where it's important. So while it should not have its own wikipedia page it should be mentioned in Trac's wikipedia page. Cgbuff (talk) 19:20, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Right and it's used, as a WP:PRIMARY source to support several of the hacks you've listed. Does it really need to discuss it? Walter Görlitz (talk) 21:06, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Project Management?
A project management software "... can manage estimation and planning, scheduling, cost control and budget management, resource allocation, collaboration software, communication, decision-making, quality management and documentation or administration systems."

I understand Trac is marketed as a tool with a "simple" approach to project management but I do not think its features can honor the previous statement (even in the most simplistic fashion). At least, it should NOT be mentioned in the introduction of the Trac article and the info box as a software of this category (I feel is somewhat misleading and there are software products with more of these features that do not try to pose at all as software project tools) but, the "simple" approach can me mentioned somewhere else to keep fanatics of Trac happy.

George Rodney Maruri Game (talk) 07:58, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Agree. Seems like trying to use Wikipedia to hype the product. Walter Görlitz (talk) 16:56, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Edgewall Software, is it a legal entity?
https://www.edgewall.org/ does not suggest this is a legal entity.

> edgewall.org is a place where a community of software developers collaborate on creating exciting open source software based on the Python programming language. It is best known for the popular web-based project management tool Trac.

Is it really an informal group of people? Or did I miss something? Dachary (talk) 07:50, 27 September 2023 (UTC)